5of6A U.S. Air Force T-38 trainer takes off from Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph Monday August 21, 2017Schertz, Texas. The planes are taking off near an area known as an APZ or Accident Potential Zone. Subdivisions are currently being built in areas close to these APZ areas.Photo: John Davenport, STAFF / San Antonio Express-News

The pilots of a jet trainer that crashed last month at Laughlin AFB in Del Rio were attempting to land the plane when it went down and both ejected — including the one who was killed, the Air Force’s training command said this week.

In a statement responding to questions submitted by the San Antonio Express-News, the training command said it “can’t speculate on the cause” of the crash, but said Graziano ejected from the plane along with Palyok.

The command provided no answer when asked if the flyers had reported an in-flight emergency before returning to the base. It said the pilots were completing a training mission.

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A look at the T-38

The T-38 Talon is a twin-engine, high-altitude, supersonic jet trainer with an exceptional safety record. Air Education and Training Command is the primary user of the T-38 for joint specialized undergraduate pilot training. Air Combat Command, Air Force Materiel Command and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration also use the T-38.

The T-38C uses a glass cockpit with integrated avionics displays, head-up display and an electronic “no-drop bomb” scoring system. The T-38 needs as little as 2,300 feet of runway to take off and can climb from sea level to nearly 30,000 feet in one minute.

Primary function: Advanced jet pilot trainer

Builder: Northrop Corp.

Power plant: Two General Electric J85-GE-5 turbojet engines with afterburners

The crash was the second at Laughlin in just less than a year involving the Talon, which is one of the oldest jets in the Air Force fleet, and prompted the base to temporarily suspend T-38 flying operations.

The training command at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph called the decision to halt flying operations after an accident “normal procedure to pay respect to the deceased” and noted it is “a part of the Air Force safety investigation process.”

Graziano and Palyok, also an instructor pilot, flew with the 87th Flying Training Squadron at Laughlin. The unit conducts specialized undergraduate pilot training for the Air Force, Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard and allied nations.

Graziano is survived by his mother, father, sister and brother.

There have been four T-38 accidents across the command in about a year. They included a fatal crash Nov. 20, 2017, in which a plane flown from Laughlin AFB by Capt. Paul J. Barbour and Capt. Joshua Hammervold went down between two subdivisions near the San Pedro Amistad National Recreation Area.

An Air Force accident investigation board said the flyers were on a routine training mission when their jet suffered a catastrophic hydraulic failure that prevented the pilots, both of them instructors, from returning to the base about 12 miles away.

The board’s president, Brig. Gen.-select Joel Carey, concluded that other factors in the crash were a “lack of maintenance guidance” to address “similar repeated failures” of the aircraft, failures that occurred regularly yet too infrequently to be defined as a recurring pattern.

Described by the Air Force as “an exceptional aviator with a true passion for flying,” Barbour, 32, of Van Nuys, Calif., was killed because he forgot to arm his ejection seat during an incomplete preflight checklist and was trapped in the cockpit as the plane plummeted to the ground. Hammervold ejected with minor injuries.

Carey’s report found a delay of about a minute in the pilots’ decision to eject because of concern for populated areas below them was one of several “factors that substantially contributed to the mishap.”

Other T-38 crashes, in which the pilots safely ejected, occurred during flights out of Columbus AFB in Mississippi on May 23 and at Vance AFB in Enid, Okla., on Aug.17.

Sig Christenson covers the military for the San Antonio Express-News and been with the paper since 1997. He was embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and has reported from Baghdad and Afghanistan seven times since.

A Houston native, he covered the Branch Davidian siege, the 1994 Pensacola abortion clinic shooting, the 2003 space shuttle breakup over Texas, the 2009 Fort Hood shooting and its subsequent legal proceedings, as well as hurricanes, tropical storms and floods since 1986, among them Rita and Katrina and Maria.

Some of his projects include “Witness to War,” a special section recounting the invasion and early occupation of Iraq, and “The Only Retreat,” a three-part series detailing the only U.S. defeat during the invasion.

He’s won awards from Hearst Newspapers and the Associated Press, including Texas APME’s Specialties Reporting category in 2008, and was named “Reporter of the Year” by his peers in 2004.

A graduate of the University of Houston, he is a co-founder, former president and former board member of Military Reporters & Editors, established in 2002.

For a look at his work over time, see www.sigchristenson.com E-mail Sig at saddamscribe@yahoo.com